What is it about?

This blog will initiate you into the world of printers and cartridges. Here you will find recent news, announces, "how-to" articles, videos, as well as interesting and sometimes amazing facts about printing devices, printing technologies and printing supplies.

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Surely you have faced this problem: one fine day the printer stops printing and starts flashing with its LEDs. You know that something went wrong but don’t know what it is.

The thing is when broken, printer can’t TELL you happened (I imagine it would be breathing like Darth Vader or speaking in Optimus Prime’s voice,) but it can give you a sign. It is the you who should understand that signs (as a higher developed species.) At least, it’s in your interest to do so.

Xerox launched five new products in the laser printer and MFPs to extend its already broad line of document imaging solutions for the midsize and small businesses.

The Phaser 3100 MFP is the Xerox’s low-end new solutions with speeds of up to 21 pages-per-minute and such features as scan to e-mail, a full keyboard for the fax directory and Optical Character Recognition software to convert scanned documents into searchable files.

Individual users and small work groups may take advantage of Xerox’s Phaser 3250 laser printer. The device features double-sided printing and can print up to 30 pages-per-minute.

Next laser printer, the Phaser 3600 can print at speeds of up to 40 ppm and is provided with a standard one-year warranty that can be extended to three years. With advanced security features and Xerox CentreWare Internet Service technology, the Phaser fits workgroups best.

The Phaser 5500 is the top printer in this Xerox’s release. Designed mostly for larger workgroups, the printer has the PhaserSmart online troubleshooting tool and printing speeds of up to 50 pages-per-minute. The Phaser 5500 can bolster the ability to produce double- or single-sided tabloid-sized printouts.

Last in the release, the Phaser 2625 multifunction printer can speeds up to 35 ppm and includes security options like image overwriting, encryption and authentication tools.

While being just another low-cost color inkjet printer, Lexmark Z2420 Wireless stands out for its integrated 802.11b/g wireless connectivity, which makes it as flexible as only few other printers in this price range. Unfortunately, that’s all there is, because its performance is moderate, according to, discovers Melissa Riofrio, in PC World review of Lexmark Z2420.

In tests the Z2420 performed fairly well. It produced 10 pages of text in 1 minute, which is slightly above average for this category. As for color graphics printing, here Z2420 rates slowest among the likes.

It was noticed that the Z2420’s print quality greatly depends on the type of paper. On the plain paper, the black ink produced slightly faded and fuzzy-looking letters. Color photos also looked faded and grainy. On Lexmark’s own photo paper, the same images brightened and showed improved, crisper details.

Lexmark calculates its ink yields using a suite of typical documents. The cartridges that came along with the Z2420 printer ran out fast, after 175 “black” pages and 150 “tricolor” pages. A higher yield, yet more pricy cartridges are available; black cartridge costs $25 and lasts 500 pages or 4.9 cents per page. A tricolor cartridge lasts same 500 pages, but costs $35, which makes 7.2 cents per page.

The printer is easy to install via USB or wireless, thanks to the helpful installation process. The overall design is of the printe is described as simple, too.

The printer can hold up to 100 sheets through rear-loading input area and has a 25-sheet output tray. The cartridges are hidden behind a top panel and have easy-release latches. There are only 2 buttons on the control panel that perform all, but this is a common site for a budget printer like that.

In conclusion Melissa finds Lexmark Z2420 Wireless rather disappointing as main printer. However, as a cheap secondary device for occasional photo printing, Z2420 is a good choice. Besides it has a wireless connection, something that other low-cost printers don’t.

Usually printer ink manufacturers say an ink or toner cartridge is enough to print this or that amount of pages. Little is known of how actually this number is defined. Yes, we know that they use a 5% coverage page and print continuously until a cartridge (or several cartridges – to get consistent result) is empty. But that doesn’t have much to do with real life printing.

Unfortunately, you can’t know beforehand how many pages a cartridge will print, but you are fortunate to know there is a good way to count the pages that has been printed. (Name your own reason why would want to do that.)

Good thing is this way of counting printed pages does not require any additional software (though there is some,) except for Windows XP installed. Bad thing is you won’t get specific, detailed information like page size, printing quality mode, color and other settings.

A new home page is born

For several years TCD has been having the main page intact. But time go on, so does life, and what was current once, is obsolete now. “The time has come” — that is what we decided and released a new version of the home page.

Truth be told, that was a protracted labor: our team has walked the long path of trial and error before the main page could see this world, or I’d better say ‘before this world could see the page.’

Here we must warn you, unlike on the picture above, in real life tabs don’t switch automatically. You will have to click the tabs yourself!

So what’s new?

The list of brands has changed its look. Now you can see the size of font is smaller for less popular brands and is larger for more popular brands.

The Supply Finder has moved to a personal tab and its larger font won’t let you click a wrong menu item by mistake.

The Bestsellers now have their own tab, too. How could that be helpful to me, you may ask? The Bestsellers are cartridges that sell best for they are popular, that is compatible with popular printers, and the chances are you printer is one of those. Tag line is: find your toner cartridge faster!

A tab with Hot Deals. A bit of advertisement never hurts, you know. Besides, this section of the store offers cartridges at prices that are really hard to resist.

Bottom line is… well, actually it’s a bottom row — the most current information on discounts and gifts available in the store.

The idea behind the makeover of the main page was to give it a modern look and. More importantly, make it more convenient for you, our customers.

Just a couple of months ago Samsung bolstered world’s smallest color laser printer (http://blog.tonercartridgedepot.com/2008/03/12/worlds-smallest-color-laser-printer-samsung-clp-310/). The other day the company broke its own record: it rolled out the new smallest color printer in the world – Samsung CLP-315K.

The new tiny printer measures only 388 x 313 x 243 mm and weighs around 11 kilos. Compared to previous generation, the dimensions have shrunk by 20%.

There is also a multifunction version of this printer, CLX-3175FNK (the left one on the picture with cute Korean girls). This MFP features not only direct print from various devices such as flash-drives, cameras, mobile phones, but it also supports scanning of documents directly to removable storage.

The two devices are yet available in Korea only, but it should not take long for them to appear on American and European markets.

The Xerox’s research lab demonstrated reusable paper. No, no, not recyclable which is any paper, but reusable. Information printed on it disappears in 24 hours. The developers claim a sheet of such paper can be use up to 100 times without compromising quality, of print presumably.

From the outside, the paper looks like an A4 sheet. From the inside, however, it is made of thousands of UV-sensitive molecules that interact with UV radiation of printer and change their properties. A day later, the molecules exposed to the radiation change back to initial properties. So, no toner is needed.

Currently, this technology only works for black-and-white printing. The very printers are so compact that they can be mobile.

Xerox first announced the reusable papers late in 2006. At that time, the paper was said to keep printed info 16 to 24 hours and be reused up to 50 times.

A question remains whether the new paper would be durable enough, since I can’t think of how gentle one should handle a printed sheet so that it lasts 100 reuses.